The environmental impact of our operations is small, particularly when compared with the effect of our developments. But despite this we work hard to operate efficiently to keep our impact to a minimum.

Emissions

Emissions source

Reporting year end30 September2018CO2e tonnes

Reporting year end30 September2017CO2e tonnes

Combustion of fuel and operation of facilities

1,136

1,068

Electricity, heat and cooling purchased for own use

1,707

1,971

Total CO2e tonnes

2,843

3,039

Financial turnover £k

150,398

60,333

Intensity ratio: CO2e tonnes/turnover £k

0.0189

0.0504

Intensity ratio: CO2e kg/turnover £k

18.9

50.4

Intensity ratio: CO2e kg/turnover yearly per cent change

-62.5%

+75.0%

Our carbon footprint has reduced slightly compared to 2017, partly due to the sale of some assets. The sharp reduction in intensity factor relates to an increase in turnover and an increased number of strategic sites while the boundaries of our carbon footprint have remained largely unchanged. The hotel at Deansgate and Alconbury Weald were the largest producers of CO2 emissions accounting for 75 per cent of our carbon footprint. This has highlighted areas for improvement on these sites which may help bring our carbon footprint down in the next year. To reduce our carbon footprint, all new buildings are designed with efficiency in mind and we are making improvements to increase the efficiency of our sites; for example, we have upgraded to LED street lighting at Waterbeach.

We measure and report our greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), providing a good proxy for our overall environmental impact. Our greenhouse gas emissions statement includes all emission sources required under the Companies Act 2006 (Strategic and Directors’ Reports) Regulations 2013 for the financial year ended 30 September 2018 and includes comparison on a like-for-like basis.

The emissions reported are for facilities under our operational control. This includes all offices occupied by the Group, as well as Alconbury and the Renaissance hotel at Deansgate, Manchester.

Carbon emissions from assets we do not own or have operational control of, including tenant consumption and certain joint ventures, have been excluded from our carbon footprint. Also excluded are assets where we are acting under a development management agreement for their development: these will be included when the land is drawn down under that agreement in future periods.

We understand that our impact does not end with our operations, so we have undertaken an exercise to estimate the carbon footprint of our bought goods and services. The chart on page 63 is based on attributing a carbon value to spend in various categories, using input-output (IO) carbon factors (originally created by DEFRA but updated to reflect current market values by Anthesis).

In 2018, we estimated the carbon emissions of our bought goods and services to be 29,946 tonnes CO2e. Of this construction (45.6 per cent) was by far the largest contributor to our indirect emissions. This with the next two biggest contributors – real estate activities (19.6 per cent) and legal, consultancy and other services (28.8 per cent) – contributed a combined 94 per cent of our indirect emissions.

We work with suppliers to reduce the impact of our operations and this analysis will help us to prioritise the areas where we can have the greatest impact.

Intensity ratio

18.9

62.5%

CO2e kg/turnover £k (2017: 50.4)

change in CO2e kg/turnover £k compared to 2017

Catesby’s project management team on site at Myton Green, Warwick.

Travel

Our team travel around the country to conduct their work, attending stakeholder engagement sessions, viewing sites and meeting landowners, tenants, local authorities and local communities.

This is shown in the fact that fuel for car journeys accounts for around 6 per cent of our carbon footprint. While our head office is in London we do have regional offices to reduce this travel as much as possible and open project-based offices once sites move into delivery. As well as reducing travel, this also allows us to cultivate the authentic local connection and local knowledge that underpin our business.

Most long-distance journeys are conducted by train. We also encourage cycling and have bicycles available at Alconbury and Waterbeach for site tours. We operate a cycle-to-work scheme open to all staff and around 10 per cent of our people commute by bike. All business travel must be documented and authorised to ensure it is necessary and that it is conducted via the most appropriate mode.

Segway training during the Festival of Learning at Alconbury Weald.

Health and safety

Health and safety (H&S) is a top priority for us. It is essential that we look after the people who work for us and those building, working and living on our sites. We review our policies regularly and engage with contractors, housebuilders and other stakeholders to ensure our approach is effective and up to date.

Our H&S policy is independently audited and re-issued to all staff every two years to incorporate recent guidance and legislative updates. This year we also introduced a user-friendly handbook, which provides a more accessible version of the Group policy to promote a culture of health and safety within the business. In addition, 84 per cent of our staff have received H&S awareness training within the last 12 months.

We surveyed staff to determine how well embedded our H&S policies and procedures are, as well as understanding general awareness across the offices and development sites. The areas of improvement identified by this report will be implemented in the next financial year.

We hold regular H&S consortia meetings for contractors and housebuilders at all our strategic land sites. As well as acting as general co-ordination meetings, the frequency of these meetings helps us identify and resolve issues quickly and reinforces the importance of health and safety to us and our contractors and housebuilders.

In April, we began supplementing these meetings with fortnightly intermediate visits by our team to the housing developer sites. These visits provide a spot check of the H&S culture being exhibited by the housebuilders and contractors. We feed back the results of these visits through the consortia meetings. We have been working with site staff and housebuilders across all the strategic sites to promote health and safety incident reporting and emphasising how incident reporting helps improve safety by flagging risks before an incident occurs. We have also produced a guide for residents on keeping themselves safe whilst living near a construction site.

We adhere to all relevant statutory provisions including the collation of H&S data from our construction activities, and risk assessments are undertaken to augment written policies and to ensure all our development activities and operations are undertaken safely.

A summary of our performance in the year

Reportable accidents

Nil

Fatalities

Nil

Prosecutions and fines related to health and safety

Nil

Incidents requiring first aid

10

Natalie Turland and Ryan Barnes on site during the construction of Incubator 2.